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As an aeldari player, I'm glad there's a cap now. Stacking to-hit mods was a pane for people. Honestly, the scenarios where you could get a -3 or -4 to hit weren't that big a problem because they were kind of an inefficient investment of resources. But being to put a -2 on a huge chunk of your army made playing against them a pain. Fishing for 6s just isn't very enjoyable, and that's why I don't feel that letting everyone always hit on a 6+ alone would not have been an adequate fix.

That said, without stacking to-hit penalties, my pointy ears do feel like they're missing something. Moving a couple of extra inches compared to our imperial counterparts usually doesn't make much of a difference and is seldom viscerally satisfying. Heck, my Nephrekh necrons with their automatic advance distance of 6", veil of darkness, Deceiver's Grand Illussion, and the ability to charge my canoptek stuff after advancing makes them feel strangely more mobile than my craftworlders; at least in the early game.

We used to have initiative as a nod to our speed. That's gone. Fine. It wasn't an ideal mechanic.

We used to be able to charge after advancing with basically every non-vehicle in the army. That's gone. We used to be able to functionally move-shoot-move with Battle Focus. That is no longer the case.

At various points our skimmers could only be hit on 6s in melee if we moved fast enough or could ignore half the attacks that got through with a flat out or jink save. Now craftworld tanks have the same save as marine vehicles, and drukhari vehicles have a 4+/5++.

We used to be able to leave melee and shoot without penalty. Not any more. And of course, last edition we could stack a bunch of to-hit modifiers, but not any more.

In the past, when we lost one of the above representations of our mobility, we got something else in return. Unless I'm missing something, we don't seem to have gotten any replacement mechanics this edition.

If mobility and evasiveness are supposed to be part of our gimmick, what mechanics do we have that really support that? We don't need to-hit mods specifically, but what do we have?

Not Online!!! wrote:

The Newman wrote:
To be fair I argued as hard as anyone else that Marine rerolls were a problem, but not because of the power level or the time involved.

I had an issue with it because unlike practically everyone else Marine rerolls are an aura so everything in the army is designed around standing next to Guilliman, regardless of whether you can take him or not. That's terrible design, but nothing there is an inherent issue with rerolls themselves.

Ah what i call obliterators syndrom, Tell me though what to do about it, cost Units without rerolls? Watch the world burn, cost them at half capacity rerolls?still too good. Cost Units as If allways under such aura influenced and stratagems etc? Well that specific unit with that specific Setup still performs, but what about those that don't take that combination?

See rerolls are just a 3rd of the issue , stratagems and other abilites/traits the other 2...

Cost the reroll source higher. Simple as that. Units need to be able to function as intended by themselves. Otherwise you get Codex: CSM syndrome

I really have mixed feelings. I mean if my tomb blades still have a -1 to be hit then basically any troops with heavy weapons can dol a full move at me and fire with no effective penalty vs not moving, assault weapons can move and fire at me with no penalty, and it does me n good at all to use cover.

So in a real sense if robs my tomb blades of their advantage as people can do things that would normally incur a shooting penalty if firing at them and not get it.


Of course I'm not playing the holy space marines so my issues are insignificant.

It's too restrictive. Maybe a rules that allowed unit specific things, like tomb blades -1 to be hit with shooting, then at most a -1 external penalty, like terrain, and at most a -1 penalty for the firer's actions like running.

As is, my blades are out in the open and a dev unit doesn't move and fires. -1 to be hit,

My blades are in cover and the dev moved and fired. still -1 to be hit.

A total 3 mod cap might be ok. 1 for innate issues like tomb blade modifiers, 1 for terrain and 1 for firer actions which he doesn't have to take. Plus the firer can not only not take an action that incurs a penalty he could use a strategem or wargrear that gives a plus one, or the plus one from a squad ability is not counted towards a limit.

The Newman wrote:
The argument (not your argument AnomanderRake, I'm swinging back to the general topic now) is that rerolls are abusive and slow the game down, how about this thought exercize: a D6 system with two different levels of rerolls has almost as many accuracy brackets as a D20 system. Who here really thinks they could resolve 3 Centurions (54 shots) or a decent Daemonette charge (30-45 swings) rolling D20s and looking for a 5+ faster than they could roll the same number of D6s picking out and rerolling the 1s? I know I couldn't do it. D12s have the same problem. You'd be making it feel better but it wouldn't actually improve anything.

d20's? Probably not - a, they're generally bulkier than d6, so I can't roll as many in one go; b, they actually roll, so a dice tray is definitely needed, or we'll be playing "hunt the die" all day; c, they're less stable once they've stopped rolling, so knocking them from one result to another by "accident" would be a concern; and d, they tend to have smaller individual faces, making them tougher to read at a distance. Not much of an issue when you're rolling one or two for an RPG, but a problem if you're trying to resolve 30+, I'd say.

Infinity is one of the few wargames I'm aware of to use a d20 as a main die type, and I think you only roll one or two at a time, so they get around some of the issues.

The d12, on the other hand, generally has a face size about the same as a d6, tend to be stable when rolled, and aren't that much bigger than a d6. Assuming sensible colours (black lettering on a light die, white lettering on a dark die), and a non-Q-workshop font choice, I think they'd be fairly simple to resolve, though testing would be required for empirical evidence. I might have to go through my box of dice and see how many readable d12's I have.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

The Newman wrote:
To be fair I argued as hard as anyone else that Marine rerolls were a problem, but not because of the power level or the time involved.

I had an issue with it because unlike practically everyone else Marine rerolls are an aura so everything in the army is designed around standing next to Guilliman, regardless of whether you can take him or not. That's terrible design, but nothing there is an inherent issue with rerolls themselves.

Ah what i call obliterators syndrom, Tell me though what to do about it, cost Units without rerolls? Watch the world burn, cost them at half capacity rerolls?still too good. Cost Units as If allways under such aura influenced and stratagems etc? Well that specific unit with that specific Setup still performs, but what about those that don't take that combination?

See rerolls are just a 3rd of the issue , stratagems and other abilites/traits the other 2...

Cost the reroll source higher. Simple as that. Units need to be able to function as intended by themselves. Otherwise you get Codex: CSM syndrome

Oh absolutely, doesn't change that even IF the source is priced correctly that the surounding factors like chapter traits stratagems and othe abilities are, respectively that the sum becomes larger then the components....



@Dysartes, d12 would indeed seem like the best course of action, but even a good bunch of D8's would solve a lot of issues.

Overall tho, i don't think the cap is inherently bad (unless you had a subfaction built for 9th supposedly using -1 to hit stacking) but it should apply seperatly from cover and movement of heavy weapons.

The argument (not your argument AnomanderRake, I'm swinging back to the general topic now) is that rerolls are abusive and slow the game down, how about this thought exercize: a D6 system with two different levels of rerolls has almost as many accuracy brackets as a D20 system. Who here really thinks they could resolve 3 Centurions (54 shots) or a decent Daemonette charge (30-45 swings) rolling D20s and looking for a 5+ faster than they could roll the same number of D6s picking out and rerolling the 1s? I know I couldn't do it. D12s have the same problem. You'd be making it feel better but it wouldn't actually improve anything.

That's not quite the argument. It's not that "rerolls" as a general mechanic are bad and slow the game down. It's the fact that the GW rules team couldn't figure out a stat-line and points level that would allow marines to consistently perform the way they wanted them to, so rather than work that out, they basically just said "rerolls for everyone all the time, in every part of every phase". It's the sheer amount of rerolls. If they just toned down the amount of marine rerolls even that would go a long way towards fixing the issue.

I'm probably missing something, but I'm not seeing how increasing the die size helps with to-hit penalties.

If we switch to using d12s instead of d6s, then we basically give ourselves twice the faces to work with. So rolling a 3 on a d12 is like rolling a 1.5 on a d6. So you get more granularity, but does that really give us room to fix the issues with stackable to-hit penalties? Do people feel that a -2 to hit in 8th was too much, but a -1.5 would have been fine?

Tycho wrote:


That's not quite the argument. It's not that "rerolls" as a general mechanic are bad and slow the game down. It's the fact that the GW rules team couldn't figure out a stat-line and points level that would allow marines to consistently perform the way they wanted them to, so rather than work that out, they basically just said "rerolls for everyone all the time, in every part of every phase". It's the sheer amount of rerolls. If they just toned down the amount of marine rerolls even that would go a long way towards fixing the issue.

I agree. Before 8th I never had the feeling that re-rolls slow down the game and with my orks re-rolls are very limited, as they should be. However even them could abuse the re-rolls + exploding 6s as a Goff army with Ghaz and 90+ boyz works with mechanics that really slow down the game: re-rolling 1s and exploding 6s for that many dudes is not very different than the typical SM army, it's just limited to the assault phase. I avoid that type of list for many things, one is rolling and rolling and rolling.

 Dysartes wrote:

The Newman wrote:
The argument (not your argument AnomanderRake, I'm swinging back to the general topic now) is that rerolls are abusive and slow the game down, how about this thought exercize: a D6 system with two different levels of rerolls has almost as many accuracy brackets as a D20 system. Who here really thinks they could resolve 3 Centurions (54 shots) or a decent Daemonette charge (30-45 swings) rolling D20s and looking for a 5+ faster than they could roll the same number of D6s picking out and rerolling the 1s? I know I couldn't do it. D12s have the same problem. You'd be making it feel better but it wouldn't actually improve anything.

d20's? Probably not - a, they're generally bulkier than d6, so I can't roll as many in one go; b, they actually roll, so a dice tray is definitely needed, or we'll be playing "hunt the die" all day; c, they're less stable once they've stopped rolling, so knocking them from one result to another by "accident" would be a concern; and d, they tend to have smaller individual faces, making them tougher to read at a distance. Not much of an issue when you're rolling one or two for an RPG, but a problem if you're trying to resolve 30+, I'd say.

Infinity is one of the few wargames I'm aware of to use a d20 as a main die type, and I think you only roll one or two at a time, so they get around some of the issues.

The d12, on the other hand, generally has a face size about the same as a d6, tend to be stable when rolled, and aren't that much bigger than a d6. Assuming sensible colours (black lettering on a light die, white lettering on a dark die), and a non-Q-workshop font choice, I think they'd be fairly simple to resolve, though testing would be required for empirical evidence. I might have to go through my box of dice and see how many readable d12's I have.

It's not the size of the dice faces, it's the difference between dots and characters. A normal d6 is equally readable from any angle, a normal d12 depends entirely on how good you are at reading numbers that are upside-down or sideways. Telling a 9 from a 6 or a 5 from a 2 isn't that hard when there are only three or four of dice to look at, but it gets to be a problem really fast as the number of dice you have to scan over increases.

It's just too much of a sledgehammer solution. If they made it so that the defending unit could add a maximum of -1 to the roll but if the attacker advanced or moved with a heavy weapon they could add in an additional -1 too. Keep the always hits on sixes rule and I think you've got a good balance between the unfair old system and the overly generous new system.

The Newman wrote:
It's not the size of the dice faces, it's the difference between dots and characters. A normal d6 is equally readable from any angle, a normal d12 depends entirely on how good you are at reading numbers that are upside-down or sideways. Telling a 9 from a 6 or a 5 from a 2 isn't that hard when there are only three or four of dice to look at, but it gets to be a problem really fast as the number of dice you have to scan over increases.

Have the 6 and 9 be underlined, making it clear.

Moreover, part of the issue with modern 40k is a unit of 6 rolling an average of more than 250 dice for their shooting phase.

The Newman wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

The Newman wrote:
The argument (not your argument AnomanderRake, I'm swinging back to the general topic now) is that rerolls are abusive and slow the game down, how about this thought exercize: a D6 system with two different levels of rerolls has almost as many accuracy brackets as a D20 system. Who here really thinks they could resolve 3 Centurions (54 shots) or a decent Daemonette charge (30-45 swings) rolling D20s and looking for a 5+ faster than they could roll the same number of D6s picking out and rerolling the 1s? I know I couldn't do it. D12s have the same problem. You'd be making it feel better but it wouldn't actually improve anything.

d20's? Probably not - a, they're generally bulkier than d6, so I can't roll as many in one go; b, they actually roll, so a dice tray is definitely needed, or we'll be playing "hunt the die" all day; c, they're less stable once they've stopped rolling, so knocking them from one result to another by "accident" would be a concern; and d, they tend to have smaller individual faces, making them tougher to read at a distance. Not much of an issue when you're rolling one or two for an RPG, but a problem if you're trying to resolve 30+, I'd say.

Infinity is one of the few wargames I'm aware of to use a d20 as a main die type, and I think you only roll one or two at a time, so they get around some of the issues.

The d12, on the other hand, generally has a face size about the same as a d6, tend to be stable when rolled, and aren't that much bigger than a d6. Assuming sensible colours (black lettering on a light die, white lettering on a dark die), and a non-Q-workshop font choice, I think they'd be fairly simple to resolve, though testing would be required for empirical evidence. I might have to go through my box of dice and see how many readable d12's I have.

It's not the size of the dice faces, it's the difference between dots and characters. A normal d6 is equally readable from any angle, a normal d12 depends entirely on how good you are at reading numbers that are upside-down or sideways. Telling a 9 from a 6 or a 5 from a 2 isn't that hard when there are only three or four of dice to look at, but it gets to be a problem really fast as the number of dice you have to scan over increases.

Then get a dice app if you're that slow.

This isn't an issue with stat comparison rolls and stay modifiers.

As in, the current strength vs toughness.

So long as you aren't modifying the actual dice pips you can have a much wider range.

This problem is entirely because GW decided that a literal dice+ value for a stat was easier than using the comparison system.



It depends what you want: simple and narrow, or harder and wider.

There are different points along this gradient, but GW have decided that a comparison table ( s vs t ) is just too hard for WS and BS.

I think this image, while obviously exaggerated, says a lot about how excessive mods can feel like to people, and the marines have the biggest list of mod gear, rules strats, etc, in the game. So they get to pull ths more than anyone.

117301909_10103775165764710_5010938352520581184_o by matt swain, on Flickr

I’m only surprised it took this long for this thread to be made. As soon as they announced that minuses where capped at -1/+ 1 along side with 6’s all hit, my reaction was “great, another Castellan like-nerf GW made to please the crowd.” Like no-one even mentioned that 6’s always hitting doesn’t even mean anything if you cap modifiers at -1/+1, as nothing in the game has a natural BS of 6+ and a ranged weapon. Just like the Castellan nerf GW’s thought process was probably “well the community hates this thing because it was heavily abused, let’s nerf it into the ground so there’s no chance the community will accuse us of not doing enough!”

There are plenty of units in the game that can have a BS of 6+.

 Jidmah wrote:
There are plenty of units in the game that can have a BS of 6+.

Please name one with a ranged weapon. I’ll drop my argument as soon as you can.

Leman Russ Battle Tank with 1-3 wounds left.

 Jidmah wrote:
Leman Russ Battle Tank with 1-3 wounds left.

Well I stand corrected. I thought bs 4+ Tanks always degraded to a max 5+ like the plague burstcrawler does, my bad here. I guess that does give a reason for that 6’s always hit Clause to exist. That said, A badly damaged tank now being to hit a-1 unit isn’t exactly a big gain for this rule.

Salt donkey wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
There are plenty of units in the game that can have a BS of 6+.

Please name one with a ranged weapon. I’ll drop my argument as soon as you can.

Anything shooting at a Culexus assassin in dense cover would be unhittable without 6's always hits.

Maybe the problem is that wide spread "to hit" modifiers in a D6 system with units having vastly different stat lines and weapons is a bad idea. It generally wasn't bad in 6th and 7th where it generally was normal shooting or snap shooting (which was usually self inflicted, shooting at flyers, the byproduct of failing morale, or from a USR such as blinding). You would think GW would of seen how disruptive flyers could be (without ample skyfire options) and game breaking invisibility was but alas they didn't.